LINGUIST List 5.228

Fri 25 Feb 1994

Sum: Argument/Adjunct

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1. Robert Hamilton, Sum: Argument/Adjunct

Several weeks ago I posted the query below on
LINGUIST. I would like to thank Leslie Barrett,
Paule Deane, Lloyd Holliday, Dean Mellow, Ingo Plag,
and Geoffrey Russom for their helpful responses.

><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>><>< ORIGINAL QUERY:
I am currently looking at data from second language
learners of English which shows that relative clause
formation on prepositional objects in PPs which are
arguments to the verb (#1 below) is easier than that
on objects in PPs which are (semantic) adjuncts to
the verb (#2 below).

1. ... the paper that the teacher put a grade on
2. ... the bus that the boy did his homework on

Could someone recommend relevant theoretical discussions
of the argument/adjunct distinction in the syntax
literature (i.e., dealing with the issue of theta-
relatedness to the verb or the lack thereof). I am
also interested in how this thematic distinction
interfaces with phrase structure.

><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>< RESPONSES:

Aans van Kemenade, 1987. Syntactic case and morphological
case in the history of English. Foris: Dordrecht.

Baker, M. 1988. Incorporation: A theory of grammatical
function changing. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press. (incorporation limited to arguments)

Deane, Paul. 1993. Grammar in mind and brain:
Explorations in cognitive syntax. Mouton de Gruyter.
(esp chps 1 & 5)

-. "A cognitive theory of extraction", Cognitive
Linguistics, 2.1

-. "Which NPs are there unusual possibilities for
extraction from" Papers from the 24th regional meeting
of the Chicago Linguistics Society. (1988)

Hawkins, (an article in Language several years back
on processing distance and embedding--I couldn't find
this)

Mellow, J. D. 1989. "The argument - Non Argument
distinction: An introduction and overview" unpublished
ms, McGill University.

-. 1989. "A syntactic analysis of noun incorporation
in Cree. Thesis. McGill University.

Nomi Erteshik-Schir. (any work by this researcher)

Radford, A. 1988. Transformational Grammar. Cambridge UP.

Rizzi, L. 1990. Relativized Minimality. MIT Press.

Ross, J. (on noun squishes).

Takami. 1993. Preposition Stranding. (don't know publish)

Thanks again to all who responded!
Robert Hamilton
hamiltnunivscvm
University of South Carolina